Padua, Salesianum sweep New Castle County track and field titles

WILMINGTON - Sophia Curtis, a sophomore who never ran track before arriving at Padua last year, won four events and broke a meet record to lead the Pandas to their 10th consecutive New Castle County track title on Saturday.

In a meet at Abessinio Stadium that largely escaped the predicted heavy rains, Salesianum repeated as county boys champion, with sprint strength never before seen at the school.

Padua won seven of eight individual races, and 12 of the 18 events. Senior Mary Kate Dorsey won the 800 and 1,600, while sophomores won five: Juliana Balon in the 100 and 200, Molly Flanagan the 400 and Curtis in both hurdles.

Dorsey achieved her career-long goal in breaking five minutes in the metric mile, where she took a quick lead and outlasted a challenge by Appoquinimink’s Courtney Candy.

“I wasn’t going to sit. We’ve been training for this moment, and I had to capitalize on the opportunity,” Dorsey said. “I knew it would be tactical in the beginning, so it was all about keeping it honest and hitting the pace that I wanted, and hoping that people would find that more difficult and keep going on for as long as I could.”

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“It was trouble getting back into it after Covid, and after losing coach Lee [Kauffman] it was tough getting back in to it,” noted Padua distance runner Elena Bocchetti of the long-time assistant coach who died during the 2021 track season.

Kauffman would do 100 pushups at each Padua practice.

“We do three pushups each day,” Bocchetti said. “To give back to him, we always do three.”

Curtis anchored the Pandas’ 4x200 relay victory, triple jumped 38-5¼ to break Micaiah Dendy’s six-year old meet record and became the latest of Padua’s champion intermediate hurdlers.

Curtis opens with a blast of speed, then attacks the hurdles.

“I make sure I know how to use both legs. I don’t want to stutter,” she said. “Whatever I get there first with, I want to go over.”

The fleetest forward on the Pandas’ field hockey team, she was encouraged to try track by her hockey coach. By the end of her freshman year, she was the state intermediate hurdles champion.

This year, she has improved her triple jump by 5 feet.

“I used to have trouble when I would cycle, going too high,” Curtis explained. “I fixed that and I go straight out.”

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Balon swept the sprints, but is her own sharpest critic.

“I’m finally starting to run correctly. I’m working on my form a lot,” she said. “I would have an overstride at the 60-meter mark.”

Flanagan won the 400 in a weekend when she joined three winning relays, including the 4x800 when her 2:17 was the team’s fastest leg.

Freshman pole vaulter Elce Walsh (11-0) was Padua’s other winner.

Tiffany Herrera of Saint Mark’s repeated in the 3,200 - the only non-Panda to run to first place - with her sister Stephanie finishing second.

Shot putter Gabrielle Paolella of Ursuline (38-2¼) and high jumper Tyra Blakeney of St. Georges (5-0) repeated their 2021 victories. Tatnall’s Arianna Montgomery long jumped 17-8¾. Rhythm Hairston of Mount Pleasant won the discus (128-11).

With winners Jasyn Truitt (200) and Bishop Lane (400), and Michael Portale second in the 100 and 200, Salesianum dominated the short courses.

Portale anchored the winning 4x400, Vinny DelliCompagni anchored a victorious 4x100, and the Sals were so strong that even after dropping a baton, their 4x200 finished third behind Delcastle.

Hurdlers Amari Harris of Salesianum and Anthony Harris of Middletown traded victories in the 110 highs and 300 intermediates, each finishing second in the other’s specialty.

Tysean Baronette of Middletown, the state’s fastest sprinter this year, won the 100, then shut down with hamstring tightness.

“We’ve got states next week,” said the cornerback for the Cavaliers’ Class 3A football champions.

The Howard sophomore who swept all three sprints last year, Zyaire Nuriddin, was not on the track, having been recruited to Monteverde (Fla.) Academy, where he has run the nation’s third-fastest high school 400 this year.

Tatnall’s Nicolas Pizarro fended off Salesianum’s Matthew Filliben and Matt Miller to win the 1,600 and 800, then finished a 49-second anchor to lift Tatnall to third in the 4x400 relay. He, his brother Sebastian, Micah Earnest and Andre Latina led the Hornets’ 4x800 victory.

Ryan Banko continued his comeback from a hamstring injury that sidelined him after his brilliant cross country season, launching an 800-meter kick to outlast Max Leffler of Wilmington Friends in the 3200.

Throughout the winter, the Duke-bound harrier swam an hour before school.

“In a season when I couldn’t really run at all, especially when I couldn’t do any workouts at all, it was great to be able to do some hard that swim work and keep that threshold effort,” Banko said.

Donte Dockery of A.I. du Pont won the triple jump by three feet, in 46-5½.

“My strategy is keeping the knees tucked, having the angle with my belly button, and always kicking my legs out,” he explained, in between giving advice to younger competitors in the long jump, where he finished second to Andrew Mottas of Brandywine (20-11¾).

Jackson Bliey accomplished the weekend’s most unusual double victory. The MIT-bound senior high jumped 6-4 before Friday afternoon’s rain set in, then set a Brandywine school record of 169-2 in the discus.

Chris Gulotti (52-1½) of Salesianum led an unusually strong shot put field, with four competitors surpassing 51 feet and six reaching 49 feet.

Matthew Klous of Salesianum passed until 12 feet, which only one other pole vaulter reached, then won in 13-7.